BC SPCA

The British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals’ (BC SPCA)mission is to protect and enhance the quality of life for domestic, farm and wild animals in British Columbia. Along with their direct work of providing adoption services, they host summer camps over the summer to teach about the welfare of animals and conservation.

Carina, Bailey and Sophia are three Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) students who are spending their summer planning and running the day camps taking place at BC SPCA. Their work tasks include facilitating crafts, games and activities surrounding animal knowledge, helping with projects and teaching the children about animal welfare.

Carina is an Arts student at Simon Fraser University with the plan of switching to Sciences. She explained how this experience has been so different from school because it is one thing to read about something, but this opportunity has allowed her to be in an environment where people are actually doing the work to obtain her Bachelor of Arts.

Through this work experience she is figuring out how to work one-on-one with kids which has been a learning curve. It is pushing her boundaries as this is a completely new experience for Bailey. “The kids pull stuff out of you that you don’t even expect to find in yourself sometimes, they challenge me to think a little bit deeper,” Bailey said when explaining her internship thus far.

Sophia, a Biochemistry student at the University of Victoria explained how this job translates into her future career. She expressed the interest of studying Animal Welfare Science in the future. Her current schooling requires her to be creative and to look for solutions, something she is doing in her internship with BC SPCA. As a senior counselor she is also developing her management and organizational skills.

Thank you Carina, Bailey and Sophia for the great chat. I look forward to see where you will go in the future!